More of Indiana in the same time zone now?

I noticed this week that House Speaker Brian Bosma and Governor Daniels are both using a similar factoid in their replies to Hoosiers who write about the DOT time zone ruling:

"... we have a higher percentage of Hoosiers on the same time year round than we've ever had."

I am a skeptic, so I ran some numbers with the county population data from the 2000 census.

If all they are comparing is the 77.9% of Hoosiers (in 77 counties) that were observing year-round CDT/EST to the 78.5% (in 74 counties) that are now on year-round eastern time, then this statement is true -- by less than a percentage point -- not much to crow about.

However, looking at the bigger picture, we had 82% of Hoosiers (in 82 counties) on the same time for 5 months of the year, and 96% (in 87 counties) on the same time the other 7 months -- both higher percentages than the 78½ year-round figure.

However, their assertion breaks down when you remember that 100% of Hoosiers were on year-round central time from 1918 to 1961 before the federal government decided to make Indiana the narrowest state to be split between time zones.